Abigail Bell was the chief witness of the adultery of the wife. Sumner,
for the defence, cross-examined Abigail. "Are you married?"--"No."--"Any
children?"--"No."--"Have you a child?" Here there was a long pause, and
then at last the witness feebly replied, "Yes." Sumner sat down with an
air of triumph. Rufus Choate was advocate for the husband, who claimed
the divorce, and after enlarging on other things, said, "Gentlemen,
Abigail Bell's evidence is before you." Raising himself proudly, he
continued, "I solemnly assert there is not the shadow of a shade of
doubt or suspicion on that evidence or on her character." Everybody
looked surprised, and he went on: "What though in an unguarded moment
she may have trusted too much to the young man to whom she had pledged
her untried affections; to whom she was to be wedded on the next Lord's
Day; and who was suddenly struck dead at her feet by a stroke of
lightning out of the heavens!" This was delivered with such tragic
effect that Choate, majestically pausing, saw the jury had taken the
cue, and he went on triumphantly to the end. He afterwards told his
friends that he had a right to make any supposition consistent with the
witness's innocence.
A client went to consult him as to the proper redress for an intolerable
insult and wrong he had just suffered. He had been in a dispute with a
waiter at the hotel, who in a paroxysm of rage and contempt told the
client "to go to ----." "Now," said the client, "I ask you, Mr. Choate,
as one learned in the law, and as my legal adviser, what course under
these circumstances I ought to take to punish this outrageous insult."
Choate looked grave, and told the client to repeat slowly all the
incidents preceding this outburst, telling him to be careful not to omit
anything, and when this was done Choate stood for a while as if in deep
thought and revolving an abstruse subject; he then gravely said: "I have
been running over in my head all the statutes of the United States, and
all the statutes of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and all the
decisions of all the judges in our Courts therein, and I may say that I
am thoroughly satisfied that there is nothing in any of them that will
require you to go to the place you have mentioned. And if you will take
my advice then I say decidedly--_don't go_."
Choate defended a blacksmith whose creditor had seized some iron that a
friend had lent him to assist in the business after a bankruptcy. The
seizure of the iron was said to have been made harshly. Choate thus
described it: "He arrested the arm of industry as it fell towards the
anvil; he put out the breath of his bellows; he extinguished the fire
upon his hearthstone. Like pirates in a gale at sea, his enemies swept
everything by the board, leaving, gentlemen of the jury, not so
much--not so much as a horseshoe to nail upon the doorpost to keep the
witches off." The blacksmith, sitting behind, was seen to have tears in
his eyes at this description, and a friend noticing it, said, "Why, Tom,
what's the matter with you? What are you blubbering about?"--"I had no
idea," said Tom in a whisper, "that I had been so abominably
ab-ab-bused."
* * * * *
A veteran member of the Baltimore Bar tells of an amusing
cross-examination in a Court of that city. The witness seemed disposed
to dodge the questions of counsel for the defence. "Sir," admonished the
counsel sternly, "you need not tell us your impressions. We want facts.
We are quite competent to form our own impressions. Now, sir, answer me
categorically." From that time on he got little more than "yes" and
"no" from the witness. Presently counsel asked: "You say that you live
next door to the defendant."--"Yes."--"To the south of him?"--"No."--"To
the north?"--"No."--"Well, to the east then?"--"No."--"Ah," exclaimed
the counsel sarcastically, "we are likely now to get down to the one
real fact. You live to the west of him, do you not?"--"No."--"How is
that, sir?" the astounded counsel asked. "You say you live next door to
the defendant, yet he lives neither north, south, east, or west of you.
What do you mean by that, sir?" Whereupon the witness "came back." "I
thought perhaps you were competent to form the impression that we lived
in a flat," said the witness calmly; "but I see I must inform you that
he lives next door above me."
In the Supreme Court of the United States the President interrupted
counsel in the course of a long speech by saying: "Mr. Jones, you must
give this Court credit for knowing _something_."--"That's all very
well," replied the advocate (who came from a Western State), "but that's
exactly the mistake I made in the Court below."
In a suit for damages against a grasping railway corporation for killing
a cow, the attorney for the plaintiff, addressing the twelve Arkansas
good men and true who were sitting in judgment, and on their respective
shoulder-blades, said: "Gentlemen of the jury, if the train had been
running as slow as it should have been ran, if the bell had been rung as
it 'ort to have been rang, or the whistle had been blown as it 'ort to
have been blew, none of which was did, the cow would not have been
injured when she was killed."
* * * * *
Although not strictly a story of either the Bench or the Bar of America,
it is so pertinent to the latter that we cannot omit the following told
by the Scottish clergyman, the late Dr. Gillespie of Mouswold, in his
amusing collection of anecdotes.
A young American lady was his guest at the manse while a young Scottish
advocate was spending a holiday in the neighbourhood. He was invited to
dine at the manse, and took the young lady in to dinner, and kept
teasing her in a lively, good-natured manner about American people and
institutions, while it may be guessed his neighbour held her own, as
most American girls are well able to do. At length the advocate asked,
"Miss ----, have you any lawyers in America?" She knowing what
profession he belonged to replied quick as thought, "Oh yes, Mr. ----,
lots of lawyers. I've a brother a lawyer. Whenever we've a member of a
family a bigger liar than another, we make him a lawyer."
A quaint decision was given by Judge Kimmel, of the Supreme Court at
St. Louis, in an application for divorce by Mrs. Quan. The judge
directed Patrick J. Egan, a policeman, to supervise the domestic affairs
of the couple, and to visit their home daily for thirty days. After
questioning the wife closely on her attitude towards her husband and his
treatment of her, Egan wrote down for the wife's guidance a long array
of precepts. Among these were the following:
"Don't remonstrate with your husband when he has been drinking. Wait
until next morning. Then give him a cup of coffee for his headache.
Afterwards lead him into the parlour, put your arms about him, and give
him a lecture. It will have more weight with him than any number of
quarrels.
"If he has to drink, let him have it at home.
"Avoid mothers-in-law. Don't let them live with you or interfere in your
affairs.
"If you must have your own way, do not let your husband know you are
trying to boss him. Have your own way by letting him think he is having
his.
"Dress to suit your husband's taste and income. Husbands usually don't
like their wives to wear tight dresses. Consult him on these matters.
"Don't be jealous or give your husband cause for jealousy.
"When your husband is in a bad humour, be in a good humour. It may be
difficult, but it will pay."
The policeman-philosopher's precepts were duly printed, framed, and
placed against the wall of the family sitting-room. After paying only
fifteen of the thirty visits to the house directed by the judge, the
results could not have been more gratifying. Mr. and Mrs. Quan were
delighted, and presented the guide to martial bliss with a handsome
token of their gratitude in the form of a gold watch.
Many of the droll sayings of the American Bench of past years are
attributable to the fact that the judges were appointed by popular vote,
and the successful candidate was not always a man of high attainments in
the practice of his profession at the Bar, or of profound learning in
the laws of his country. Too often he was a man of no better education
than the mass of litigants upon whose causes he was called to
adjudicate. For instance, a Kentuckian judge cut short a tedious and
long-winded counsel by suddenly breaking into his speech with: "If the
Court is right, and she thinks she air, why, then, you are wrong, and
you knows you is. Shut up!"
"What are you reading from?" demanded Judge Dowling, who had in his
earlier life been a fireman and later a police officer. "From the
statutes of 1876, your honour," was the reply. "Well, you needn't read
any more," retorted the judge; "I'm judge in this Court, and my statutes
are good enough law for anybody." A codified law and precedent cases
were of no account to this "equity" judge.
But these are mild instances of the methods of early American judges
compared with the summing up of Judge Rodgers--Old Kye, as he was
called--in an action for wrongful dismissal brought before him by an
overseer. "The jury," said his honour, "will take notice that this Court
is well acquainted with the nature of the case. When this Court first
started in the world it followed the business of overseering, and if
there is a business which this Court understands, it's hosses, mules,
and niggers; though this Court never overseed in its life for less than
eight hundred dollars. And this Court in hoss-racing was always
naterally gifted; and this Court in running a quarter race whar the
hosses was turned could allers turn a hoss so as to gain fifteen feet in
a race; and on a certain occasion it was one of the conditions of the
race that Kye Rodgers shouldn't turn narry of the hosses." Surely it
must have been Old Kye who, upon taking his official seat for the first
time, said: "If this Court know her duty, and she thinks she do, justice
will walk over this track with her head and tail up."
* * * * *
On a divorce case coming before a Western administrator of the law,
Judge A. Smith, he thus addressed the plaintiff's counsel, who was
awaiting the arrival of his opponent to open proceedings. "I don't
think people ought to be compelled to live together when they don't want
to do so. I will decree a divorce in this case." Thereupon they were
declared to be no longer man and wife. At this juncture the defendant's
counsel entered the Court and expressed surprise that the judge had not
at least heard one side of the case, much less both sides, and protested
against such over-hasty proceedings. But to all his protestations the
judge turned a deaf ear; only informing him that no objections could now
be raised after decree had been pronounced. "But," he added, "if you
want to argue the case 'right bad,' the Court will marry the couple
again, and you can then have your say out."
Breach of promise cases generally afford plenty of amusement to the
public, both in the United States and Great Britain, but it is only in
early American Courts that we hear of a judge adding to the hilarity by
congratulating the successful party to the suit. A young American belle
sued her faithless sweetheart, and claimed damages laid at one hundred
dollars. The defendant pleaded that after an intimate acquaintance with
the family, he found it was impossible to live comfortably with his
intended mother-in-law, who was to take up residence with her daughter
after the marriage, and he refused to fulfil his promise. "Would you
rather live with your mother-in-law, or pay _two hundred_ dollars?"
inquired the judge. "Pay two hundred dollars," was the prompt reply.
Said the judge: "Young man, let me shake hands with you. There was a
time in my life when I was in the same situation as you are in now. Had
I possessed your firmness, I should have been spared twenty-five years
of trouble. I had the alternative of marrying or paying a hundred and
twenty-five dollars. Being poor, I married; and for twenty-five years
have I regretted it. I am happy to meet with a man of your stamp. The
plaintiff must pay ten dollars and costs for having thought of putting a
gentleman under the dominion of a mother-in-law."
The charms of the female sex were more susceptible to the Iowa judge
than to his brother of the former story. This worthy refused to fine a
man for kissing a young lady against her will, because the complainant
was so pretty that "nothing but the Court's overwhelming sense of
dignity prevented the Court from kissing her itself."
* * * * *
"A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind," wrote Garrick, and something
of this nature must have actuated Judge Bela Brown in a case in a
Circuit Court of Georgia. The judge was an able lawyer, and right good
boon companion among his legal friends. The night before the Court
opened he joined the Circuit barristers at a tavern kept by one Sterrit,
where the company enjoyed themselves "not wisely, but too well." Next
morning the judge was greatly perturbed to find a quantity of silver
spoons in his pocket, which had been placed there by a wag of the
company as the judge left the tavern the night before. "Was I tipsy when
I came home last night?" timidly asked the judge of his wife. "Yes,"
said she; "you know your habits when you get among your lawyer
friends."--"Well," responded the judge, "that fellow keeps the meanest
liquor in the States; but I never thought it was so bad as to induce a
man to steal."
Before the close of the Court a man was arraigned for larceny, who
pleaded guilty, but put forward the extenuating circumstance that he was
drunk and didn't know what he was doing. "What is the nature of the
charge," asked Judge Brown. "Stealing money from Sterrit's till,"
replied the clerk. "Are you sure you were tipsy when you took this
money?"--"Yes, your honour; when I went out of doors the ground kept
coming up and hitting me on the head."--"That will do. Did you get all
your liquor at Sterrit's?"--"Every drop, sir." Turning to the
prosecuting attorney the judge said, "You will do me the favour of
entering a _nolle prosequi_; that liquor of Sterrit's I have reason to
know is enough to make a man do anything dirty. I got tipsy on it myself
the other night and stole all his spoons. If Sterrit will sell such
abominable stuff he ought not to have the protection of this Court--Mr.
Sheriff, you may release the prisoner."
The judge of a Court in Nevada dealt differently with a man who, charged
with intoxication, thought to gain acquittal by a whimsical treatment of
his offence. On being asked whether he was rightly or wrongly charged he
pleaded, "Not guilty, your honour. Sunstroke!"--"Sunstroke?" queried
Judge Cox. "Yes, sir; the regular New York variety."--"You've had
sunstroke a good deal in your time, I believe?"--"Yes, your honour; but
this last attack was most severe."--"Does sunstroke make you rush
through the streets offering to fight the town?"--"That's the effect
precisely."--"And makes you throw brickbats at people?"--"That's it,
judge. I see you understand the symptoms, and agree with the best
recognised authorities, who hold it inflames the organs of combativeness
and destructiveness. When a man of my temperament gets a good square
sunstroke he's liable to do almost anything."--"Yes; you are quite
right--liable to go to jail for fifteen days. You'll go down with the
policeman at once." With that observation the conversation naturally
closed, and the victim of so-called sunstroke "went down."
* * * * *
"Sheriff, remove the prisoner's hat," said a judge in the Court of
Keatingville, Montana, when he noticed that the culprit before him had
neglected to do so. The sheriff obeyed instructions by knocking off the
hat with his rifle. The prisoner picked it up, and clapping it on his
head again, shouted, "I am bald, judge." Once more it was "removed" by
the sheriff, while the indignant judge rose and said, "I fine you five
dollars for contempt of Court--to be committed until the fine is paid."
The offender approached the judge, and laying down half a dollar
remarked, "Your sentence, judge, is most ungentlemanly; but the law is
imperative and I will have to stand it; so here is half a dollar, and
the four dollars and a half you owed me when we stopped playing poker
this morning makes us square."
The card-playing administrator of law must have felt as small as his
brother-judge who priced a cow at an Arkansas cattle-market. Seeing one
that took his fancy he asked the farmer what he wanted for her. "Thirty
dollars, and she'll give you five quarts of milk if you feed her well,"
said the farmer. "Why," quoth the judge, "I have cows not much more than
half her size which give twenty quarts of milk a day." The farmer eyed
the would-be purchaser of the cow very hard, as if trying to remember if
he had met him before, and then inquired where he lived. "My home is in
Iowa," replied the judge. "Yes, stranger, I don't dispute it. There were
heaps of soldiers from Iowa down here during the war, and they were the
worst liars in the whole Yankee army. Maybe you were an officer in one
of them regiments." Then the judge returned to his Court duties.
* * * * *
Judge Kiah Rodgers already figures in a story, and here we give his
address to a delinquent when he presided at a Court in Louisiana.
"Prisoner, stand up! Mr. Kettles, this Court is under the painful
necessity of passing sentence of the law upon you. This Court has no
doubt, Mr. Kettles, but what you were brought into this scrape by the
use of intoxicating liquors. The friends of this Court all know that if
there is any vice this Court abhors it is intoxication. When this Court
was a young man, Mr. Kettles, it was considerably inclined to drink, and
the friends of this Court know that this Court has naterally a very high
temper; and if this Court had not stopped short off, I have no doubt,
sir, but what this Court, sir, would have been in the penitentiary or in
its grave."
There was a strong sense of duty to humanity, as well as seeing justice
carried out, in the Californian sheriff after an interview with a
self-confessed murderer, who desired to be sent to New York to be tried,
when he addressed the prisoner: "So your conscience ain't easy, and you
want to be hanged?" said the sheriff. "Well, my friend, the county
treasury ain't well fixed at present, and I don't want to take any
risks, in case you're not the man, and are just fishing for a free
ride. Besides, those New York Courts can't be trusted to hang a man. As
you say, you deserve to be killed, and your conscience won't be easy
till you are killed, and as it can't make any difference to you or to
society how you are killed, I guess I'll do the job myself!" and his
hand moved to his pocket; but before he could pull out the revolver and
level it at the murderer, that conscience-stricken individual was down
the road and out of killing distance.
Like the sailor who objected to his captain undertaking the double duty
of flogging and preaching, prisoners do not appreciate the judge who
delivers sentence upon them and at the same time admonishes them in a
long speech. After being sentenced a Californian prisoner was thus
reproached by a judge for his lack of ambition:
"Where is it, sir? Where is it? Did you ever hear of Cicero taking free
lunches? Did you ever hear that Plato gamboled through the alleys of
Athens? Did you ever hear Demosthenes accused of sleeping under a
coal-shed? If you would be a Plato, there would be a fire in your eye;
your hair would have an intellectual cut; you'd step into a clean shirt;
and you'd hire a mowing-machine to pare those finger-nails. You have got
to go up for four months!"
In conclusion we return to the jury-box of a New York Court for the
story of a well-known character who frequently was called to act along
with other good men and true. As soon as they had retired to deliberate
on the evidence they had heard, he would button up his coat and "turn
in" on a bench, exclaiming, "Gentlemen, I'm for bringing in a verdict
for the plaintiff (or the defendant, as he had settled in his mind), and
all Creation can't move me. Therefore as soon as you have all agreed
with me, wake me up and we'll go in."
L'ENVOI
"THE TASK IS ENDED, AND ASIDE WE FLING
THE MUSTY BOOKS TIED UP WITH LEGAL STRING;
AND SO GOOD NIGHT, SINCE WE OUR SAY HAVE SAID,
SHUT UP THE VOLUME AND PROCEED TO BED;
AND DREAM, DEAR READER, OF A FUTURE, WHEN
A LAWYER MAY SHAKE HANDS WITH YOU AGAIN."
WILLOCK: _Legal Facetiæ_.
INDEX
Abbot, Mr. Justice, 43
Abinger, Lord, 35, 36, 42
Adam, H. L., 80, 101
Adams, Serjeant, 85
Adolphus, John, 76
Alderson, Baron, 45
Alemoor, Lord, 156
Allen, Serjeant, 68
Alverstone, Lord, 62
Andrews, W., 26, 99
Anne, Queen, 107, 159
Archibald, Mr. Justice, 94
Ardwall, Lord, 193, 212
Arnot, Hugo, 201, 203
Atkinson, Mrs., 90
Auchinleck, Lord, 155
Avonmore, Lord, 119-122, 131, 133
Avory, Lord, 62, 63
Bacon, Lord, 68
Bacon, Sir Nicholas, 5
Bacon, Vice-Chancellor, 38, 54
Baird, Mr., of Cambusdoon, 192
Baldwin, Mr., 83
Balfour, Sheriff, 209
Ballantine, Serjeant, 81, 88
Balmuto, Lord, 201
Bannatyne, Lord, 165
Barjarg, Lord, 156
Bell, Abigail, 234
Bethel, I. B., 136
Birrell, Augustine, 89
Blair, Lord President, 170
Blair, Thomas W., 159
Boswell, James, 155, 165
Bowen, Lord, 53, 54
Boyd, Judge, 135
Boyle, Lord Justice-Clerk, 175
Braxfield, Lord, 155, 182, 183, 200
Brocklesby, Dr., 15
Brougham, Lord, 17, 39-43, 117, 188, 205
Brown, Judge Bela, 243
Buchan, Earl of, 27, 202
Bullen, Edward, 85
Burrowes, Peter, 145
Burrows, Sir James, 9
Bushe, Charles K., 118, 122, 138
Butler, Sir Toby, 127
Byles, Mr. Justice, 49
Byron, Lord, 224
Campbell, Lord John, 13, 25, 34, 35, 41-44, 76, 86
Campbell, Lord President, 181
Carleton, Chief Justice, 112
Carleton, Lady, 112
Chambers, Montague, 77
Charles II, 6, 68
Chelmsford, Lord, 46
Chitty, Lord Justice, 38
Choate, Rufus, 234-236
Clare, Lord, 132
Clarke, George, minstrel, 97
Clarke, Thomas, 75, 76
Clonmel, Earl of, 109, 110
Coalston, Lord, 156
Cockburn, Lord, 171, 173, 174, 175, 185-187, 215
Cockburn, Sir Alexander, 46, 47, 55-57
Cockle, Serjeant, 100, 101
Coleridge, Lord, 51, 52
Collins, Stephen, Q.C., 140, 141
Colman, George, 79
Colquhoun, Sir James, 202
Connor, John, 143
Cooke, Tom, 36
Cottenham, Lord Chancellor, 42
Coutts, Thomas, 159
Covington, Lord, 155
Cox, Judge, 245
Crabtree, Jesse, 79
Cranworth, Lord, 35
Cringletie, Lord, 170
Crispe, Thomas E., 94
Crosbie, Andrew, 205
Cunningham, Lord, 206
Curran, J. P., 109, 113, 120, 121, 127-134
Danckwerts, Mr., Q.C., 59
Darling, Mr. Justice, 3, 4, 58-60
Davenport, Sir Thomas, 12
Davy, Serjeant, 70, 71
Deas, Lord, 177
Denman, Lord, 72, 73
Dewar, Lord, 51
Dirleton, Lord, 153
Douglas, Alexander, W.S., 188
Dowling, Judge, 240
Doyle, Mr., 121
Duke, Mr., K.C., 60
Dun, Lord, 159
Dundas, Henry (Lord Melville), 157, 200
Robert, first Lord President, 156, 158
---- second Lord President, 204
Dunning, Serjeant, 17, 73, 74
Egan, John, Q.C., 131, 134
Egerton, Master of Rolls, 6
Eldin, Lord, 164, 167-171
Eldon, Earl of, 10-12, 17-19, 167, 171, 179
Elizabeth, Queen, 68
Ellenborough, Lord, 20, 21
Elliock, Lord, 156
Erne, Lord, 114
Erskine, Henry, 27, 164, 199-202
John, of Carnoch, 157
---- Lord, 27-31, 46
Esher, Lord, 54
Eskgrove, Lord, 155, 160, 161, 162, 164, 199
Evans, 228
Eve, Mr. Justice, 69
Fisher, Dr., 19
Fitton, Lord Chancellor, 127
Flood, Right Hon. H., 110
Forglen, Lord, 160
Fortesque, Lord, 8
Foster, Judge, 113
Fountainhall, Lord, 153, 154
Furton, Sir Thomas, 132
Gardenstone, Lord, 156
Garrick, David, 243
George III, 19, 24
Gillespie, Rev. Dr., 238
Gillon, Joseph, W.S., 219
Glengarry, 161
Gould, Mr. Justice, 22, 30, 60, 71
Grady, H. D., 135-136
Graham, Baron, 34
Grantham, Mr. Justice, 58
Guildford, Lord, 68
Guthrie, Lord, 193
Hailes, Lord, 156
Halkerston, Lord, 163
Halligan, Denis, 113, 114
Hardwicke, Lord, 8
Harper, Sheriff, 206
Harris, Billy, 111
Hatton, Lord Chancellor, 5
Haweis, Rev. H. R., 223
Hawkins, Sir Henry (Lord Brampton), 54-57
Hayward, Mr., 132
Healy, Tim, 146, 147
Henderson, Sir John, 161
Henn, Chief Baron, 111
Jonathan, 111, 112
William, Judge, 111
Henry VIII, 4
Henry, Patrick, 224
Hermand, Lord, 165, 174, 176, 179-181
Herrick, Mr., 141
Hill, Serjeant, 69, 70
Holmes, Mr., 138
Holroyd, Chief Justice, 38
Holt, Lord Justice, 37
Hook, John, 224
Horne, Mr., Dean of Faculty, 193
Horner, Mr., 183
Hyde, Edward (Lord Campden), 7
Jackson, Sheriff Officer, 116
James, Edwin, 85, 86
James V, 153
Jeffrey, Lord, 172, 187
Jeffreys, Judge, 7
Jekyll, Serjeant, 79, 80
Kames, Lord, 5, 156, 165, 166
Keating, Mr. Justice, 61, 68
Keller, Jerry, 139
Kennedy, Mrs., 52
Kennet, Lord, 158
Kenyon, Lord, 10-12, 22-24
Kilkerran, Lord, 163
Kingston, Duchess of, 13
Knight-Bruce, Lord Justice, 47, 48
Labron, John, 39
Landseer, Sir Edwin, 81
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 85
Lawson, Mr. Justice, 123
Lee, Jack, 77
Leeds, Duke of, 46
Lees, Richard, 206
Lifford, Lord Chancellor, 110
Lockwood, Sir Frank, 89, 92
Logan, Sheriff, 206
Lysaght, Edward, 136, 137
M'Cormick, Samuel, 175
Macdonald, Chief Baron, 34
Macklin, Actor, 128
Maclaren, Lord, 194
MacMahon, Serjeant, 145
Mahaffy, Ninian, 140, 141
Mair, Ludovick, 208